, 1887-08-11
JEDGE WAxEM ABROAD.
He and Mandy visit Venice. which They
Pronounce n Very WET Town."
Especial Correspondence

Especial Correspondence
VENICE, July 10.
Politically speaking, Italy is right
p,ishin sort OF q country, and the king and
queen do good deal personally to cover up
the tyrant heel Of oppression, but it is thar
all the same, and 1t sticks out in n good many
places One of these consists in the fact that
every Italian town is fenced in by customhouse
officers, and everything that goes In to sell
has to pay duty. have saw the officers
board q street car and examine bundles the
passengers had in their arms, and every
farmer with donkey load OF garden truck
comm to market has to pay mt the gate be-
fore he can git away. Strangers coming into
town from railroad depots air subject to hav-
ing their baggage examined ef they don't go
up in the regular hotel omnibusses. Even in
the buses we have been stopped, but never
knowed what they said to me, and / shook
my head and went on Ny flask has been
empty for month, and l amt got any to-
hacker except few Italian segars that air
strong enough to huil dehants in the tyrant's
teeth, so don't bother myself much about
custom duties. 1 think Of King Humbert
would shut up his custom offices and git at
the same results by levying hucksters' and
pedlars' licenses it would look better and be
more in harmony with the sperrit of the
times.
But am forgetting myself. We air in
Venice now, and from the winder near which
! write you these few lines / can see
the Grand canal, and watch the gondoliers in
their black boats moving about on the waters
like a sea serpent with its head and tail up
and hump on its back. When we landed
here and got in gondola instid of a car to
go tho hotel, Mandy liked to have had n fit,
and said il she had knowed the spring freshets
were up that way she would have staid in
Florence. Mandy was awair that Venice
had some canals for streets, but she thought
they were mostly round the edges Of the
town, and if / hadn't read up on the train
coming in would have thought the same
way. I told her it was all right, but she
knew better, and vowed and declared that
even il the hotel people could be tempted by
money to take us in out of the wet, that she
wouldn't think Of seepin' in the house till it
was completely dried out, because her room
atz wouldn't stand any foolin' with damp
ness, and she didn't come to Europe to nuss
roomatz, but to see the sights and have q
good time. / coaxed her into going to see
the hotel anyhow, and when we got there it
stood back about 100 feet from the canal, and
looked so dry that she got out Of the gondolar.
"Wel," she says "this looks better, and IL
the water amt raisin' I'll stay here over
night but I'll go in the morning if there's the
least bit Of a sign Of rain"
After we got supper we took walk going
over the bridges every five minutes, and
follerin' narrow little streets and looking up
and down canals in every direction till we
didn't know whether we was aioat or on
shore.
Finally Mandy says to me-:
"Bash, there's somethin' lackin' about this
town that's been in every other Italian town.
Now, what is iti'
"'Taint the bad smells, is it'' asst.
"No, 'taint them; they air all present."
""Taint beggars, and feas, and dirt, and
cathedrals, and old masters and the wrecks Of
time. is it!"
"No; they're all here, as far as I've saw.
It's somethin' else, and know it as we'll as
know my own name, but can't call it,"
/ begun to look around and scratch my
head, for had been missing something my
self.
MANDY says after n bit, ave got it
it's HOSES and cartridges! We've been trapes-
ing round here for two hours and haven't
seen q hoof or wheel, nor street wide
enough to put it in IL we had it,"
That's what it was, too, and it was strange
we hadn't noticed it sooner, for they air in
sight more than anything else in city. But
in Venice you somehow, without exactly
knowin' how, take it for granted that there
oughtnt to be any, and you go right ahead
/
ticing whether there air or not.
There is some art in Venice and good
many churches. Venice is mighty roman
tic old place, reckon, and the gondoliers
with their boats in the soft light OF the moon,
and the sweet music floating In off the waters
during the summer nights is fine for poetry,
but it aint worth shucks for business. and the
place looks like it was covered with NOR.
- ola 10, tln t.,,f. 81, A
many of the old palaces are boarding houses
or art shops now, and the young feller that
used to run his gondolier under his best girls
winder aud give her a free open air concert
has backed out into the rushn waters of the
past, and the milk wagon gondolier ties up to
the back gate and waits till the hired girl lets
bucket down from the second story porch.
Ef Venice had some real estate to git a
boom into she might once more assume the
proud position of other days, but no town
can't he permanent success when its real es
tate can he pumped up and squirtsd over into
the next county, That's one reason the Poto-
mac flats, in the vicinity of our own capital
city, is today the abdin place of bad smells,
decay and other things.
~.
We went into the doge's palace, t:nd where
the infamous Council of Ten and the wuss
one of Three used to sit and deliberate and
cut mems heads Off and torture them and
carry on in every sort Of Internal way, and
wondered, as / looked around me, of in them
times, when the council was meetin, the citi-
zens standing round st. Marks square didn't
look up at the walls and say, in whispers
"The senate is in executive session." Politics
was politics in them days, and think, ef I'd
had my choice to nave been a repperesenta-
tive man, like am today, or a plain, unos-
tentatious citizen. you would have found me
workin peaceful on my Wayback farm, not
thinking even about the postofiice, unless it
was to 60 after my mail once a week. I'm a
patriot willin to risk his life fer his country,
but I'm not one goin around with his life in
his hand tryin to git somebody to take it just
fer the sake of excitement. There's good
deal Of difference between q fool and pat
triot, sometimes. .*s